Method for deploying a cellular communication network

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems are provided for optimizing communication networks, such as cellular communication networks. A super-cell may be configured a communication network, with the super-cell comprising a central cell and at least a part of one cell adjacent to the central cell, with antennas of the super-cell comprising one or more antennas of the adjacent cell, and where the configuring of the super-cell comprises arranging the one or more antennas of the adjacent cell to be directed towards the central cell. The configuring of the super-cell may comprise configuring antennas of the super-cell such that signals from the antennas use at least one same channel resource. The super-cell may be configured to communicate with at least one communication device located within the super-cell without use of any antenna of the central cell of the super-cell.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY AND CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATEDAPPLICATIONS/INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/475,002, filed Sep. 2, 2014, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/730,788, filed Dec. 28, 2012, which in turnclaims the filing date benefit of and right of priority to European (EP)Patent Application Serial No. 11405379.6, filed Dec. 29, 2012. Each ofthe above identified application is hereby incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the field of wireless mobilecommunications. More specifically, certain embodiments of the inventionrelate to a method for deploying a cellular communication network.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Existing cellular networks usually have network cells each comprising abase station located at a central position inside the cell, covering thearea of the cell for communicating with mobile devices that may beinside the cell. Required data rates in cellular networks are constantlyincreasing, but today's cellular networks are planned such thatinterference is minimized between adjacent base stations. With suchcurrent mobile network concepts and existing systems it is difficult tocope with the very high throughput demand. As such, it may be desirableto increase data rates and/or other performance parameters in cellularcommunication networks based on an existing network structures.

One concept to achieve much higher throughput is the usage ofcooperative networks. Cooperation in this regard means that severaltransceivers (e.g., base stations) can exchange data (e.g., relating topropagation conditions, channel, interference, transmit power, etc.) tooptimize the transmission and/or reception to one or more transceivers(e.g., mobile phones). This optimization is usually done to improvequality of service (QoS), e.g., throughput or reliability, but alsoother optimization criteria can be applied. However, it is noteconomically viable to establish a cooperative network from scratchwhere an existing network—which is not designed for cooperation—isalready in place.

WO 2010/060185 A1 discloses a method and system for identifying cellclusters within a coordinated multi-point network. The network and amobile user device together determine a set of cells that is tocommunicate with the user device. In essence, this is done by selectingcells and base stations from which the user device receives the highestpower. Base stations can comprise multiple antennas (e.g., for enablingspatial diversity). US 2011/0124345 A1 discloses a very similar methodfor selecting a base station or a cell clustering group to participatein communication with a user device. WO 2011/100672 A1 describes asystem and method for receiving a channel state information referencesignal. For this purpose, groups of network cells can be formed thatinterfere with each other.

Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditionalapproaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, throughcomparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention asset forth in the remainder of the present application with reference tothe drawings.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A system and/or method is provided for deploying a cellularcommunication network, substantially as shown in and/or described inconnection with at least one of the figures, or otherwise as describedherein, as set forth more completely in the claims.

These and other advantages, aspects and novel features of the presentinvention, as well as details of an illustrated embodiment thereof, willbe more fully understood from the following description and drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various features and advantages of the invention will become apparentfrom the following description of non-limiting exemplary embodiments,with reference to the appended drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a cellularcommunication network in an initial state.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a cellularcommunication network in a reconfigured state.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of general shapes ofsuper-cells.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example of antennas of asuper-cell linked to a common processing system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Certain embodiments of the present invention may be found in a methodand a system for deploying a cellular communication network, asdescribed in the following in more detail with reference to the attachedfigures. In this regard, various embodiments of the invention mayprovide a method and a system for deploying a cellular communicationnetwork, given an existing network structure, in particular with givenbase station locations, which may overcome present limitations and/ormay allow enhancing performance (e.g., increase data rates and/or otherperformance parameters).

In particular, deploying a cellular communication network (or any mobileradio communication system) may comprise reconfiguring the cellularcommunication network, wherein the cellular communication network may inan initial state comprise a plurality of cells, with each cellcomprising a base station located at a central position inside the celland one or more (transmitting and receiving) antennas arranged to coverthe area of the cell (e.g., typically by emanating radiation in alldirections around the base station) for communicating with communicationdevices (e.g., mobile communication devices, inside the cell). Thereconfiguring may comprise selecting a plurality of cells that are notadjacent to each other, and using these selected cells as central cells.In this regard, for each central cell in the base station(s) of (one ormore) cells that are adjacent to the central cell, one or more antennasmay be arranged to be directed—e.g., configured to emanate radiation ina limited range of directions and to receive radiation from this limitedrange—towards the central cell, that is, for example, at leastapproximately towards the center of a super-cell that is based on thecentral cell. In this regard, the super-cell, comprising the centralcell and part of (typically each of) the adjacent cells, may beconfigured wherein the outline of the super-cell may be defined by thebase stations of the adjacent cells, and antennas of the super-cellcomprising the antennas of the adjacent cells that are directed towardsthe central cell, and optionally also an antenna or antenna array of thecentral cell. The reconfiguring may also comprise coordinating (e.g.,via a common processing system) the emanation of radiation by theantennas of the super-cell so as to communicate with a plurality ofcommunication devices located within the super-cell, wherein the signalsfrom the antennas of the super-cell use at least the same channelresources.

As used in the present disclosure, the terms “antenna” and “antennaarray” may be used interchangeably, denoting either a single physicalantenna, or a group of physically distinct antennas, which may belocated at the same device (e.g., base station) and may act together asone transceiver antenna. Thus, when enhancing an existing cellularnetwork, such as using a cooperative approach, a change in the networkstructure may take place. In this regard, in a cooperative network, twoor more transceiver nodes may share their information to jointlytransmit and/or receive—e.g., jointly as a virtual antenna array. Thismay enable them, for example, to obtain higher data rates and diversitythan they could have individually. In more detail, cooperation may meanthat several, usually geographically separated base stations withtransceivers and/or transceiver antennas (or antenna arrays) exchangedata (e.g., on data symbols being transmitted, and/or on propagationconditions, channel properties, interference, transmitting power, etc.)to optimize the transmission to one or more receivers and/or receptionfrom one or more transmitters—these receivers and transmitters typicallybeing mobile communication devices.

The optimization may be done with respect to criteria such as quality ofservice (QoS), which may include such parameters as reliability or datathroughput, and/or with respect to broadcasting power or other criteria,or to an optimization in view of combined criteria. To allow forcooperation between different—e.g., geographically separated—basestations, the RF resources of the base stations may overlap at least inone dimension or domain of channel resources, with these domains being,for example, frequency, time and/or code. For example, cooperating basestations can use the same frequency band, such as for LTE (Long TermEvolution) and other OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing)systems, the same code, such as for UMTS (Universal MobileTelecommunications System) based systems, and/or other CDMA (Codedivision multiple access) systems.

Therefore, in accordance with various embodiments of the invention, anumber of base stations may be adapted to form one or more super-cellsin the resulting reconfigured cellular communication network (or mobileradio communication system). In this regard, rather than have each basestation serve the area of one of the original cells only, each basestation may be configured to cooperate with the other cells of the samesuper-cell. The cooperating may be done, for example, by splitting upthe original cell into two, three or more subcells (e.g., depending onthe placement of the base stations) and combining the subcells ofdifferent original cells to form the super-cell. The subcells may alsobe referred to as antenna sectors, or simply sectors. The antennasectors of the base stations may be oriented such that coverage insidethe super-cell may be optimized, and/or interference towards neighboringsuper-cells can be minimized. Typically, but not mandatorily, thesuper-cell may comprise also one of the original cells that is not splitup to serve a plurality of super-cells. Frequently, this is one of thecentral cells. In this manner, the coverage area of a super-cell may bemade much larger than the typical coverage area of the individualoriginal cells. The super-cell coverage area is thus served “from theoutside” (i.e., from the boundary of the super-cell), instead of “fromthe inside” (i.e., from a location approximately centrally locatedwithin the cell) as in conventional networks.

The present approach may improve cell cooperation benefits achievableover conventional cellular networks, including, but not limited to,throughput and other quality of service (QoS) optimizations. Inparticular, in accordance with various embodiments of the invention, theperformance available to a cellular communication device may improvesignificantly at or near the cell edge.

In accordance with various embodiments of the invention, base stationsmay be placed around a coverage area of the super-cell, and antennapatterns may be directed such that (e.g., by cooperative methods) theQoS in a super-cell may be improved, inter super-cell interference maybe reduced, and/or the number of base stations can be reduced (e.g.,depending on optimization goals). In this regard, when the base stationsare placed at cell edges, use of super-cells may allow reducing thenumber of base stations while improving QoS by applying cooperativeconcepts. By reducing the number of base stations in the super-cell, theinter super-cell interference can be further reduced as compared tostate-of-the-art cell planning approaches. The RF coverage area of asuper-cell may be significantly larger than that of a single one of theoriginal cells, depending, inter alia, on the number and geometry chosento form the super-cell. For example, the area of the super-cell is threetimes the area of a single original cell. Consequently, for a movinguser, fewer handovers are required. In some instances, base stationsectors serving the coverage area of a super-cell may use at least someof the same channel resources—i.e., they are not separated in at leastone of the frequency, time, and/or code domain. For example, the basestations may be enabled to cooperate by using the same frequency band orbands. Separating communication channels to different mobile devices canthen be effected by separation in the time domain, code domain, or othermultiple access protocols. While such approach may be used in a typicalsetup, other variations may also be possible—e.g., the base stations ofa cell may share resources in the time domain and/or code domain, andseparate the users in the frequency domain.

In accordance with various embodiments of the invention, differentoptions for network operations may be possible or used. Examples ofnetwork operations options may relate, for example, one or more of thefollowing different cost and performance parameters: elimination of thecentral base station(s), to free up resources; increasing networkcapacity with regard to the number of mobile users/devices; increasingnetwork capacity with regard to data rates—e.g., aggregated data ratesand/or data rates provided to individual users and/or; achieving morehomogeneous data rate distribution across the cellular coveragearea—i.e., mitigating the effect of distance dependent data ratereduction; increasing failure tolerance of base station or antenna; anddecreasing transmitting power while achieving the same or similarperformance of a conventional network. Each of these example options, ora combination thereof, may be implemented. The improvement of the costand performance parameters mentioned above may be measured based on aparticular reference point. For example, as a reference point for theimprovement of the cost and performance parameters mentioned above, thenetwork in its original, initial state can be, for example, used—thatis, the network with the original distribution of non-cooperating basestations, each base station corresponding to the center of one cell.

For example, in an example embodiment of the invention, the antennas ofthe super-cell may be used to increase the data rate or to optimize thedistribution of the data rate in communicating to the one or morecommunication devices inside the super-cell while maintainingessentially the same transmission power as in the initial state. In thisregard, the transmission power may typically be the total transmissionpower emitted by the base stations to serve a particular geographicarea. In another example embodiment of the invention, the transmittingpower of the antennas of the super-cell can be reduced, in particularwhile maintaining essentially the same QoS as in the initial state.

In an example embodiment of the invention, the central cell of thesuper-cell is not required to transmit or receive RF signals becausecoverage may be assured through the cells adjacent to the central cell.In other words, the antenna of the central cell is disabled and notneeded for communication in the new network based on the cooperatingedge antennas. However, the central cell, rather than being physicallyremoved, may be used for another network, for example.

In an example embodiment of the invention, the antenna or antenna arrayof the central cell in the super-cell may be set as omnidirectionalantennas or antenna arrays. For example, a central antenna or array ofantennas of a central cell which may comprise, for example, threeantennas, each covering a 120° sector, may operate with at least some ofthe same channel resources as the antennas pointing inwards from theborder of the super-cell. The inward pointing may allow reusing the basestation in the central cell, incorporating it in the new super-cell,allowing for one or more of increasing network capacity, increasingfailure tolerance and/or reducing transmitting power.

In an example embodiment of the invention, antennas or antenna arrays ofthe super-cell may be used to increase the data rate and/or to optimizethe distribution of data rates in communicating to a plurality of mobiledevices inside the super-cell. For example, this may be done bymaximizing the minimum data rate of communication over a plurality ofuser devices.

In an example embodiment of the invention, antennas or antenna arrays ofthe super-cell—in particular the antennas of the central cells incooperation with the antennas of the edge base stations—may be used toincrease failure tolerance within the super-cell.

In accordance with aspects of the invention, as a result of cooperativearrangements and operations of the antennas of the super-cells, failureof a single unit such as an antenna or base station of a super-cell maybe less significant than in a conventional cellular network. Incontrast, when a base station in a conventional network is notoperational, service in the corresponding cell will be significantlycompromised. Due to the cooperative arrangements and operations,adjacent antennas of the same super-cell may provide coverage at thelocation of the failed unit, optionally by increasing their power outputand/or relaxing QoS requirements and/or adapting an alternativecooperation scheme. This can be done both when the central base stationhas been kept operating in the cooperating system or when it has beenremoved therefrom. Further beneficial and/or cost reducing consequencesmay be that replacements of failed network components do not have to beput in place immediately, and consequently less reliable hardware may bedeployed, reducing network operating cost while maintaining the same orsimilar reliability compared to a conventional network.

In an example embodiment of the invention, the transmitting power of theantennas of the super-cell may be reduced, thus allowing adherence tomore stringent restrictions on power emission, while maintaining orincreasing QoS.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a cellularcommunication network in an initial state. Referring to FIG. 1, there isshown a network in an initial state 10 (referred to hereinafter as“initial network 10”), which may correspond to a conventional (e.g.,cellular communication) network.

The initial network 10 may comprise any suitable logic, circuitry,interfaces, and/or code for implementing various aspects of theinvention. The initial network 10 may correspond to an area which may becovered by, for example, hexagonal cells 1, with each cell 1 comprisinga base station 2 (e.g., in the middle of the cell 1). Each base station2 may comprise any suitable logic, circuitry, interfaces, and/or codefor implementing various aspects of the invention, including providingcommunication related functions and/or services in the correspondingcells 2. In this regard, the base stations 2 may comprise antennas orantenna arrays for use in communications to and/or from the basestations 2. For example, each base station 2 may comprise anomnidirectional antenna array or antenna—i.e., the antenna array orantenna is configured to transmit/receive in all directions (or 360°)around the base station 2. Some base stations 2, however, may compriseantenna arrays or antennas that are not omnidirectional.

In the initial network 10, communication with mobile devices 5 withinthe area of each cell 1 may be achieved by means of the base station 2of the cell. Each cell 1 may use different communication resources fromadjacent cells cell 1 in order to avoid inter-cell interference. Suchdifferent communication resources may comprise, for example, differentfrequency bands, different time slots and/or different coding schemes.Further differences in communication resources may be applied toseparate the communication with different mobile devices 5.

In various example embodiments of the invention, the initial network 10may be reconfigured, such as to enable enhancing performance and/orresource utilization. For example, the initial network 10 may bereconfigured by forming super-cells, which may be centered at particularcells (e.g., the cells denoted 8 in FIG. 1) in the initial network 1. Anexample of such reconfiguration is described in FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a cellularcommunication network in a reconfigured state. Referring to FIG. 2,there is shown a network in a reconfigured state 10 (referred tohereinafter as “reconfigured network 11”), which may correspond to areconfigured conventional (e.g., cellular communication) network inaccordance with aspects of the present invention.

The reconfigured network 11 may be obtained, for example, fromreconfiguring the initial network 10. In this regard, in order totransform the initial network 10 into the reconfigured network 11, anumber of non-adjacent cells may be selected, and denoted as centralcells 8. Furthermore, given the selected central cells 8, other cells 1that surround the central cells 8 may also be selected. In someinstances, the selected other cells 1 may be adjacent to the centralcells 8. The invention is not so limited, however. Each central cell 8,together with at least a part of each of the surrounding cells 1, may beused to form a super-cell 9. In this regard, when forming suchsuper-cells 9 the base stations 2 in the other cells 1 surrounding thecentral cells 8 may be reconfigured, such as by replacing theomnidirectional antennas with directional antennastransmitting/receiving in sectors. In some instances, antennas may berearranged to increase the overlapping area for cooperation. Forexample, whereas in the initial state (e.g., in the initial network 10)antennas in adjacent cells may be oriented so as to not point towardeach other, in the reconfigured state (e.g., in the reconfigured network11), antennas may be oriented to point towards the center of the newlyformed super-cell 9. From the point of view of the newly establishedsuper-cell 9, these base stations 2 that may be located on the edge ofthe super-cell 9 may be treated as edge base stations 2 e.

In some instances, multiple and separate antennas or antenna arrays maybe deployed in some edge base stations 2 e, such as to enable servingmultiple super-cells 9 (as shown in more details in FIG. 4, below). Inthis regard, and each antenna or antenna array in the edge base station2 e may be associated with one super-cell 9, and (optionally) the angleor sector covered by this antenna or antenna array may be adjusted tolie within the that (corresponding) super-cell 9. Thus, differentantennas or antenna arrays of the same edge base station 2 e may servedifferent super-cells 9. By using directional antennas at base stations(e.g., edge base stations 2 e), interference between adjacentsuper-cells 9 may be minimized. Minimizing interference may allow evenfor use of the same channel resources, e.g., frequency bands (“reusefactor 1”), in adjacent super-cells 9.

The resulting reconfigured network 11 is schematically depicted in FIG.2. In this regard, the main direction of the antennas or antenna arraysat the edge base stations 2 e, directed towards the center of therespective super-cell 9, is indicated by thick arrows. The resultantsuper-cells 9 may have, as shown in FIG. 2, an approximately regularhexagonal form. The invention is not so limited, however, and in someembodiments the reconfiguring may allow for flexibility in geographicalshaping (e.g., as shown FIG. 3). The edge base stations 2 e are allequipped with three directional antenna arrays, such that each basestation 2 e can serve three super-cells 9 while the interference toadjacent super-cells 9 can be reduced due to the direction of theantenna patterns of the base stations 2 e. Also, other geometries ofsuper-cells 9 are possible, e.g. a network setting where three oranother number of base stations 2, 2 e cooperate with each other andform other geometries of super-cells 9. In some instance, an entire basestation 2 (e.g., that of the central cell 8) may be eliminated for eachsuper-cell 9, as compared to conventional networks.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of general shapes ofsuper-cells. Referring to FIG. 3, there is shown an example layout of areconfigured network (e.g., the reconfigured network 11) with aplurality of super-cells 9.

In the example reconfigured network layout shown in FIG. 3, some edgebase stations 2 e in the super-cells 9 may be configured to servemultiple super-cells. In this regard, while some edge base stations 2 emay be equipped with a single antenna array, other edge base stations 2e may comprise multiple (e.g., two or three) antennas or antenna arrays,and thus may be configured to serve two or three super-cells 9 at thesame time. According to an example embodiment, all super-cells 9 in areconfigured network (e.g., reconfigured network 11) may communicateusing the entire available bandwidth (“reuse factor 1”), while reducingand/or avoiding inter-super-cell interference. For example,inter-super-cell interference may be avoided due to the direction of theantenna patterns of the base stations 2 e. Interference betweensuper-cells 9 can be further reduced by applying FDMA, TDMA, or CDMAschemes. In this regard, in contrast to conventional cellular networks,where a single base station is located in the middle (or near themiddle) of the area to be served, each super-cells 9 in the reconfigurednetwork 11 may be served by multiple edge base stations 2 that arelocated on the edges or on the border of the super-cell 9.

Accordingly, regardless of the exact geometry of the super-cell 9 andthe placement of its (edge) base stations 2 e, each super-cell 9 may beserved by multiple (edge) base stations 2 e, and optionally also by acentral base station 2, which may all cooperate with each other tojointly serve the corresponding area of the super-cell 9. In someinstances, the same channel resources used by the signals of cooperatingantennas in a super-cell may be common channels of a time divisionmultiplex, frequency division multiplex or code division multiplexcommunication scheme.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example of antennas of asuper-cell linked to a common processing system. Referring to FIG. 4,there is shown a base station (e.g., the edge base station 2 e) of areconfigured network (e.g., the reconfigured network 11).

As shown in FIG. 4, the edge base stations 2 e may comprise a pluralityof antennas or antenna arrays 3, which may be configured to communicatewith each other and optionally also with a central base station (notshown) via a backbone network, such as utilizing a common processingsystem 6 for example. The common processing system 6 may comprisesuitable circuitry, interfaces, logic, and/or code for implementingvarious aspects of the invention, including, for example, providingcommon processing functions during reconfiguring networks and/oroperations in reconfigured networks. In this regard, it should beunderstood that the common processing system 6 is shown herein as aconceptual or logical entity—i.e., although it can be implemented by aphysically centralized component, it can also be implemented bydistributed computing components which are located, for example, at thebase stations 2, 2 e, exchanging information and working together toachieve common processing functions, such as for achieving cooperationwhich may be required among the antennas 3 of the super-cell 9. One ormore inter-base-station communication links 7 are used to exchangeinformation (e.g., channel information, messages, and/or otherknowledge) that may be required to cooperatively communicate between thebase stations in order to cooperatively communicate with the mobiledevices 5 that are to be served.

Based on the available knowledge, the base stations 2, 2 e thatcorrespond to the same super-cell 9 may cooperate on different levels.For example, if high capacity links with low delay are provided betweenthe cooperating base stations, full cooperation with joint beamformingand/or joint data processing may optionally be employed. In this regard,multi-user multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) communication between thebase stations belonging to the same super-cell 9 and their correspondingmobile devices 5 can be optimized, such that a minimal rate over allmobile devices 5 may be maximized for example. This can be realized bydetermining (e.g., via the common processing system 6) precodinginformation for weighting the signals of the antennas of the super-cell,and then implementing this precoding at the geographically separatedantennas. Also, other optimization criteria, such as sum-rate,throughput, and others may be possible. The same super-cell setting mayalso be used for limited cooperation. In this regard, the base stations2, 2 e may exchange limited information to coordinate theirtransmissions and/or receptions (e.g., scheduling, power allocation,time, and frequency allocation), such as to reduce intra-super-cellinterference and maximize desired signals, to allow soft handover, toexploit macro diversity, or others. Cooperation within the super-cell 9may also be realized by multi-hop communication schemes, such as withthe use of additional relays or femtocells. Base stations 2, 2 e mayalso be replaced by relays that may communicate wirelessly with basestations 2, 2 e in order to exchange the required information for thetransmission/reception with the mobile devices 5.

Other embodiments of the invention may provide a non-transitory computerreadable medium and/or storage medium, and/or a non-transitory machinereadable medium and/or storage medium, having stored thereon, a machinecode and/or a computer program having at least one code sectionexecutable by a machine and/or a computer, thereby causing the machineand/or computer to perform the steps as described herein.

Accordingly, the present invention may be realized in hardware,software, or a combination of hardware and software. The presentinvention may be realized in a centralized fashion in at least onecomputer system, or in a distributed fashion where different units arespread across several interconnected computer systems. Any kind ofcomputer system or other apparatus adapted for carrying out the methodsdescribed herein is suited. A typical combination of hardware andsoftware may be a general-purpose computer system with a computerprogram that, when being loaded and executed, controls the computersystem such that it carries out the methods described herein.

The present invention may also be embedded in a computer programproduct, which comprises all the features enabling the implementation ofthe methods described herein, and which when loaded in a computer systemis able to carry out these methods. Computer program in the presentcontext means any expression, in any language, code or notation, of aset of instructions intended to cause a system having an informationprocessing capability to perform a particular function either directlyor after either or both of the following: a) conversion to anotherlanguage, code or notation; b) reproduction in a different materialform.

While the present invention has been described with reference to certainembodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art thatvarious changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted withoutdeparting from the scope of the present invention. In addition, manymodifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material tothe teachings of the present invention without departing from its scope.Therefore, it is intended that the present invention not be limited tothe particular embodiment disclosed, but that the present invention willinclude all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: configuring asuper-cell in a communication network that comprises a plurality ofcells, the super-cell comprising one of the plurality of cells that isassigned as a central cell and at least a part of another cell from theplurality of cells, adjacent to the central cell, wherein: antennas ofthe super-cell comprise one or more antennas of the adjacent cell; andthe configuring of the super-cell comprises arranging or causing thearrangement of the one or more antennas of the adjacent cell to bedirected towards the central cell; and configuring the antennas of thesuper-cell to use at least one same channel resource for signalscommunicated from the antennas of the super-cell, wherein the at leastone same channel resource comprises a common channel configured for usein accordance with a time division multiplex, a frequency divisionmultiplex, or a code division multiplex based communication scheme. 2.The method of claim 1, comprising configuring at least one antenna ofthe central cell of the super-cell to communicate, in coordination orcooperation with antennas of one or more adjacent cells that are part ofthe super-cell.
 3. The method of claim 1, comprising configuring thesuper-cell to communicate with any communication device located withinthe super-cell without use of any antenna of the central cell of thesuper-cell.
 4. The method of claim 1, comprising replacing, whenconfiguring the super-cell, omnidirectional antennas of a base stationof the at least one adjacent cell with directional antennas.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, comprising reconfiguring, when configuring thesuper-cell, one or more antennas of the at least one adjacent cell topoint towards the center of the super-cell.
 6. The method of claim 1,comprising deploying in base stations of the at least one adjacent cellseparate antennas or antenna arrays associated with the super-cell,wherein the angle or sector covered by the separate antenna or antennaarray is adjusted to lie within the super-cell.
 7. The method of claim1, comprising configuring the antennas of the super-cell to increase thedata rate or to optimize distribution of the data rate in communicatingwith at least one communication device located within the super-cell,while maintaining transmission power used prior to configuring the onesuper-cell.
 8. The method of claim 7, comprising optimizing thedistribution of the data rate based on maximizing of minimum data rateof communication over a plurality of the communication devices.
 9. Themethod of claim 1, comprising configuring the super-cell to increasefailure tolerance within the super-cell.
 10. The method of claim 1,comprising configuring the super-cell to reduce transmission power ofthe antennas of the super-cell while maintaining the same quality ofservice.
 11. A system, comprising: one or more devices for use in acommunication network that comprises a plurality of cells, the one ormore devices are operable to: configure and operate a super-cell in thecommunication network, wherein: the super-cell comprises one of theplurality of cells that is assigned as a central cell and at least apart of another cell from the plurality of cells, adjacent to thecentral cell; antennas of the super-cell comprise one or more antennasof the adjacent cell; and the one or more antennas of the adjacent cellare arranged to be directed towards the central cell; and configure theantennas of the super-cell to use at least one same channel resource forsignals communicated from the antennas of the super-cell, and whereinthe at least one same channel resource comprises a common channelconfigured for use in accordance with a time division multiplex, afrequency division multiplex, or a code division multiplex basedcommunication scheme.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the one ormore devices are operable to configure at least one antenna of thecentral cell of the super-cell to communicate, in coordination orcooperation with antennas of one or more adjacent cells that are part ofthe super-cell.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or moredevices are operable to configure the super-cell to communicate with anycommunication device located within the super-cell without use of anyantenna of the central cell of the super-cell.
 14. The system of claim11, wherein an antenna or antenna array of the central cell of thesuper-cell comprise an omnidirectional antenna or an omnidirectionalantenna array.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein an antenna or antennaarray of a base station of the at least one adjacent cell comprise anomnidirectional antenna or an omnidirectional antenna array, and whenconfiguring the super-cell, the omnidirectional antenna or anomnidirectional antenna array of the base station of the at least oneadjacent cell are replaced with directional antennas.
 16. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the one or more devices are operable to reconfigure,when configuring the super-cell, one or more antennas of the at leastone adjacent cell to point towards the center of the super-cell.
 17. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein the one or more devices are operable toconfigure the antennas of the super-cell to increase the data rate or tooptimize distribution of the data rate in communicating with at leastone communication device located within the super-cell, whilemaintaining transmission power used prior to configuring the onesuper-cell.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein the one or more devicesare operable to optimize the distribution of the data rate based onmaximizing of minimum data rate of communication over a plurality of thecommunication devices.
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein the one ormore devices are operable to configure the super-cell to increasefailure tolerance within the super-cell.
 20. The system of claim 11,wherein the one or more devices are operable to configure the super-cellto reduce transmission power of the antennas of the super-cell whilemaintaining the same quality of service.